Saturday, September 26, 2009

Learn and share with like-minded individuals who want to succeed as much as you do. Let me give an example.

Ms. Mathilda is a 33-year-old domestic helper in the States. She was working there since 1994. During her first few years, she was not able to save a penny. She was still single then and felt that she owed it to herself to live it up somehow. After all, she handles all the stress that comes from her work and she figured she should enjoy while she still can.

She sends some money to her 80 year-old mother. But instead of saving what is left of her income, she spends it on clothes, and other unnecessary items. She spent all of her earnings because of this type of attitude. During 1997, she eventually got married and it dawned on her that she had to save in order to go home to her own country and have a good life with her husband while they raise a family.

Let's say she earns about HK$3270 monthly in Hongkong. If she saved HK$500 monthly, it would take her some time to save enough and operate a sizeable business that would provide her with additional income.

Instead of doing it all alone, she encouraged six of her friends that also work as domestic helpers to start saving with her so they could save more in a shorter span of time. They knew that by having more money saved, they could have more capital to start a business and a bigger chance of succeeding than any business that anyone of them could set up on their own. They intended to use their joint savings to venture into a business that one of them would directly manage.

Three years ago, each of them started saving HK$500 monthly. If we compute their total income now if they placed all their savings in time deposits and savings accounts, then we would see that they would have a sizable amount of cash and their savings would continue to grow to this day as they consistently save up.

Their story is a good example of how working together, and in this case, saving together, can provide better benefits than doing it alone.

"The Power of One can lead to changes for the benefit of the many. These changes come from the many but only if many of them can come together to form that which is invincible, the Power of One".